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The pro-chancellor and founder of Achievers University, Owo, Ondo state, Bode Ayorinde have advocated for the establishment of an industry in each of the senatorial districts across the country as a panacea to tackle the spate of unemployment in the country.
Ayorinde, a former House of Representative member said this at the 13th Anniversary lecture of the university entitled: “Challenges of Reinventing Quality University Education in Nigeria.”
According to him, the industries when established would absorb the high number of graduates being churned out on yearly basis in the nation’s tertiary institutions.
Ayorinde lamented that thousands of graduates are leaving tertiary institutions across the country yearly without employment.
“Establishing an industry in each of the senatorial districts across the country would help to reduce drastically the number of jobless graduates and other unemployed people.
According to him Ondo state has nine tertiary institutions with no industries to engage graduates across the state. Earlier, the guest lecturer, the pro-chancellor of Lead University, Ibadan, Oyo state, Jide Owoeye (prof ), said it was largely erroneous to hold the perception that private universities are after Evangelism and profits.
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Owoeye said “It could also be argued that when critics generally input profit motive or evangelism as the main motivation of private providers of higher education, they should remember that government itself did not start universities for just altruistic purposes alone.
“There was always something to profit from such endeavours. Furthermore, we often forget that even public universities impose some charges to meet their overheads.
“Apart from subventions from government, public universities still collect gifts, endowment and engage in all kind of paid consultancies; therefore public universities tend to be profit-minded as well. He pointed out that a profitless adventure of any kind cannot be sustainable because the enterprise will fail to survive not to talk of regenerate itself.
Speaking on the wrong perception that graduates are unemployable, he said that “Nigerian graduates are unemployable is one of the latest fads commonplace among those with scant knowledge of the relationship between educational attainment and employability.”
The scholar lauded the management of the university for unprecedented academic efficiency and for being at the forefront of providing qualitative university education in the last 13 years in the country.
The institution’s vice-chancellor, Samuel Aje ( prof ), said the university had produced effulgent graduates, maintaining that the 13th anniversary is worthwhile to celebrate.
Aje noted that with dedicated staff, the institution had brazed the trail and was determined to be the best private university in the country.
